By Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON, April 16 (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives backed President Donald Trump’s military campaign against Iran on Thursday, narrowly blocking a Democratic-led resolution aiming to stop the war until hostilities are authorized by Congress.
The war powers resolution was rejected by 214 to 213 in the Republican-majority chamber, a day after a similar measure was blocked in the Senate.
The narrow vote was almost exclusively along party lines, with every Republican except Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky opposing the resolution, and one, Warren Davidson of Ohio, voting present. One Democrat, Representative Jared Golden of Maine, voted against it.
The vote underscored the continuing support among Trump’s fellow Republicans for the president’s war policy, more than six weeks after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28.
It was the second time since the conflict began that the House has rejected legislation to constrain Trump’s authority to wage war. The Senate’s failed attempt to pass a resolution on Wednesday was the fourth in that chamber.
Democrats have called on the president to come to Congress for authorization to use military force, noting that the U.S. Constitution says that Congress, not the president, can declare war. They warned that Trump may have pulled the country into a long conflict by failing to spell out a clear strategy.
“We are standing at the edge of a cliff, and Congress must act before this president pushes us off. Every day we delay, we inch closer to a conflict with no exit ramp,” Representative Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said, urging support for the resolution.
Presidents from both parties have long held that the Constitution’s restriction on presidential war powers does not apply for short-term operations or if the country is under immediate threat.
The White House and almost all of Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress say Trump’s actions are legal and within his rights as commander-in-chief to protect the U.S. by ordering limited military operations.
Representative Brian Mast of Florida, an Army veteran who lost both legs while serving in Afghanistan and who is now the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it would be “crazy” to remove troops from Iran during the current two-week ceasefire. He said Democrats backed the resolution only because of their opposition to Trump.
“It’s all pure politics for my colleagues,” Mast said.
Trump agreed to a two-week ceasefire with Iran on April 7.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Editing by Franklin Paul and Edmund Klamann)
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